


Where broken hearts go

by Sporie121



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst, Gen, Happy Ending, M/M, Time Travel, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-23
Updated: 2014-02-23
Packaged: 2018-01-13 13:16:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1227769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sporie121/pseuds/Sporie121
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock discovers where a broken heart goes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where broken hearts go

Sherlock always wanted to know where a person with a broken heart goes. As strange as it sounded, Sherlock always wanted to know. He asked his mother when the sappy romance movies she loves ends with the dark, handsome man choosing between two girls. Where does the girl go who  _isn't_   picked?, Sherlock always wondered. Was there a place where she went were she met other broken-hearted girls and talked? Or did she die, a single unhappy old lady? When he asked his Mother these questions she simply laughed a him, saying he was a very clever boy(Sherlock didn't really see how he could be _that_  clever, seeing as he didn't even know the answer to his question), and told him not to worry too much about, since it was just a silly movie. Still, Sherlock thought to himself as he watched the dark, handsome stranger kiss a beautiful blonde woman, there must be  _somewhere_ a broken heart can go.

Sherlock Holmes decided at an early age that falling in love was a bad idea.

Not because Sherlock considered himself to be bad at romance(although he _was_ very bad at it), or because he deemed himself unworthy of the prospect of romance.

It was about the fact that he could time-travel.

He could travel through time to any point in his own life, to change or to turn something bad around.For Sherlock, he discovered his 'ability' (he didn't consider it an ability so much as a curse) when he was six years old-one minute he was standing behind a huge tree, the leaves tickling him as he waited for Mycroft to find him, next minute he was where he was six hours ago, sitting at the breakfast table in his pyjamas and half way through a bowl of Coco Pops. After the first start of panic and hysteria, he decided to tell his mother, who brought him upstairs to her room and gently explained to him about the family's ability  time-travel, starting with the second-born of the family. After that, Sherlock discovered the way time-travel worked: if on traveller closes his eyes and concentrates as hard as he can, he will travel to a different point in time; if he or she does not think of a certain point, it will either not happen(or, in Sherlock's case, transports him to six hours ago). Sherlock's mother was surprised to find that Sherlock wasn't sad, or confused, or angry, like she herself had been when her father had told her; in fact, Sherlock was delighted. He felt just like Doctor Who, like he was wise knew everything about the world. Unlike most kids, Sherlock didn't want a TARDIS or to fight the Daleks; what Sherlock wanted, more than anything else in the world, was a companion, like Rose or Martha or Donna. Someone who would think him other worldly, or even plain bizzare, but still stayed his friend anyway. Sherlock had never had a friend like that, and decided that was his goal in life; a companion.

Sherlock met John when he was eleven years old. It was his first day of secondary school, and he was absent for three days because they were visiting his gran in France. Now Sherlock wishes he was back there, were there was the sea and picnics in fields with flowers in the grass like freckles on a face; everywhere, yet somehow connecting in a way that somehow makes sense. He misses his gran, with her hair raven-coloured curls despite being eighty two years old, and her lollopy golden retriever that sat on Sherlock's lap at dinner. Right now, anything was better than standing t the front of class painted a strange custard colour, with a teacher drawling about classes and time and what he has to catch up on. Everyone seemed to be in groups, boys and girls, apparently having picked them at the beginning of the year. Eventually the teacher says he'll be sitting next to John Watson, who seems to be the only other person in he class without a group. He smiles at Sherlock when he sits down, brushing his blond fringe out of his eyes, and Sherlock gives him a small smile back.

Secondary school isn't  _that_ bad, he decides.

Sherlock and John's firs kiss is after John's won a rugby match, when John is walking home with Sherlock, when he leans over and suddenly presses his lips against Sherlock's. John's lips taste like tea and mud and a hint of pizza, a strange mix that wouldn't work with any other person who isn't John Watson. They break the kiss at least a few hours short for their tastes, and John leans over and whispers into Sherlock's ear, tickling Sherlock's ear.

"My place next Saturday, then? "

John Watson officialy died at eighteen years and seven months old, on the back of his boyfriend's motorbike. The motorbike was a red one, a brand that Sherlock deleted long ago from his brain. The bike skidded, and both of them crashed. Sherlock was wearing a helmet and survived with a broken leg and a sprained arm. John died of blood loss because he wasn't wearing a helmet, Sherlock insisted hey would be fine, and even if he did survive he might have been brain damaged.

Only Sherlock remembers this.

Because, at that moment, Sherlock decided, he wasn't going to bring John on a date and take him to see a flick(or at least, that was what he had _intended_ , before  _the incident_ ); Sherlock was going to go back in time, cancel the date. Then he could meet up tomorrow, and John would joke about Sherlock getting last minute nerves, and then they would kiss and life would go on.

It was only until he was about to close his eyes, Sherlock realised; John was always going to die young, as long as he stayed with Sherlock. Because all the things Sherlock did were dangerous, and scary,and outrageous. John was going to die, at nineteen or twenty or thirty, because of Sherlock. It would be all over the newspapers, he could see it now: 'John Watson killed.' 'John Watson beaten to death.' John Watson stabbed, John Watson shot, John Watson raped. 

He had to back, further than yesterday, further than last week or even last year.

Sherlock closed his eyes and concentrated, until the bandaged nineteen-year old and became a ten-year old child again.

After that, Sherlock did everything in his power to keep him away from John Watson. He went to a different secondary school, avoided John's favourite places, he even refused to be even remotely near the rugby pitch in case John was there. He knew he was being paranoid, silly, ridiculous. But whenever he considered it he remembered a motorbike skidding, screams and cracks and jolts. So instead, Sherlock steered clear of John's life, and John of Sherlock's.

_Mum, where do people with a broken heart go to?_

To Sherlock, John was everything; brave as a soldier, kind as a doctor, narky as a teenager, strong as a rugby player and addicted to tea as the average British person was. For the first few weeks Sherlock worried; worried that John would leave after one argument too many, that Sherlock would be a hand wave, a "just a phase" to tell his new blond girlfriend. But John never did, instead became a true love, a companion to the doctor. Sherlock had always feared that one day, he would have erase himself from John's life one way or another, because closing his eyes was truly all it took, to erase the kisses and the laughs and the dates gone wrong or right and twining hands together(John once held Sherlock's hand as tight as a scared child would, when they watched _Scream_ together. Back then, John made Sherlock promise not to tell anyone, not even Harry; now that never happened).

When Sherlock heard the words  _heart and broken,_ he imagined a heart being carefully cut in half. Now, he knows that it means being cut into a million pieces, a mess waiting to be brushed away and never to be spoken of again. Now, Sherlock knows why the girl not chosen in the movies looks so heartbroken when tall-dark-handsome kisses -thin-blond-beautiful. There's a sadness there, even years after, that not even time-travel can erase.

When Sherlock meets John again, h doesn't even recognise him.

He sees a man, an ex-soldier with a wedding ring on his right ring finger and a limp and a phone belonging to a drunk sister. Grey-haired and plain as a wholemeal digestive. It's only until Mike says those words,  _John Watson,_ that he looks up. John looks at the same time, and he blinks as though he recognises Sherlock, but that can't be true because Sherlock hasn't seen him, not in this lifetime. So instead, he nods and looks down again, the words  _wedding ring wedding ring wedding ring_ ringing in his head. "Afghanistan or Iraq?" he says.

Sherlock catches up with John's life, a life of not meeting Sherlock and not not kissing Sherlock and not  _being with Sherlock._ Sherlock asks who the lucky man is on the taxi to the crime scene, and John looks at him with a mix of confusion and a bit of nostalgia, which he has been doing all day, before saying he's bisexual(John never told him that; why didn't John tell him that?). She's a nurse, the doctor says(he became a doctor; Sherlock's oddly proud about that), called Mary. She.s also already pregnant, but he doesn't need to say he's not marrying because of the baby, Sherlock knows from he talks about her, how his eyes light up hen he says her name. He's marrying Mary, because of her kindess and her mundaness and her boringness and her ability to carry children ness. There's something, deep inside John, that somehow remembers him, but not how Sherlock wants him to. Sherlock is probably a passing face, a stranger. Not who Sherlock wants him to be. There's still a part inside of him, he realises, that hopes he'll remember, a childish part that nearly bursts with hope when Sherlock mentions something from when they were together, when John look a him in  _that way_ that drives Sherlock insane.

Broken hearts, Sherlock realises when he watches Mary and John dance at their wedding, don't  _go_ somewhere. Instead they disappear, slowly yet surely, every time he sees the man he's met and loved and was loved back, that never happened.

When Ella is born, its about an over a day of pushing and waiting and worrying. Sherlock and John sit an hard plastic chairs outside Mary's room, while John worries as a small voice in Sherlock's head that gets louder by the hour, whispering that if Sherlock hadn't time-travelled John would be his, that his love wouldn't be worrying like this if Sherlock hadn't erased John. Sherlock is nearly on the verge of telling John this, telling John everything (mostly because of lack of sleep and too much cofee for the average person to drink, partly because _John deserves to know, and John needs to know_ ),when a doctor opens the door and announces that a healthy baby girl was born. John runs in, leaving Sherlock to stumble in sleepily after him, and Mary lies in the snowy white hospital sheets, wiping her brow as she passes John the baby. Sherlock soon has the infant in his arms, and nearly wants to cry at her. To some people it looks like an ordinary baby, with blond hair like whispy clouds on a skin couloured sky and huge blue eyes reflecting Sherlock head as she takes him in, wrapped snugly in a pink blanket."Ella Sherlock Watson." Mary announces proudly. "That's her name. You like it?". Sherlock nods, feeling lost for words as he slowly hands Ella back to Mary.

Then, without another word, Sherlock walks out of the room, out of the hospital.

Sherlock can't go back again.

He can't travel back in time, because if he does Ella Sherlock Watson will never be born, and if that happens he'll never forgive himself.

This is it, this is Sherlock's turning point.

He'll never see John Watson again, because he couldn't stand not seeing John again.

_No going back, the voice in his head says. Time to forward._

Sherlock leaves, back to Baker Street, with no John, and he doesn't want o see John again, he reminds himself.

Sometimes, a doctor can go without a companion.

 

John hasn't seen Sherlock in two years.

Sherlock has seen John, and Ella.

He sees Ella grow from a tiny baby to a toddler, her blond hair growing to her shoulders, curly and strong.

But, no matter how hard he tries, he simply  _can't_ go back to John.

One day, he reaches in the pocket of his coat and finds a picture of him and John before he stopped them from meeting, a relic he kept from that time. It was Sherlock's fifteenth birthday party, and him and John are sitting on the sofa, their arms over each other's shoulders and their legs tangled together like vines.

In a rage, he throws it out the window one day(in his new flat, because he knew John would try to find him, and god knows if he met him he would burst out everything, right from the beginning, about the life he lived to it's full potential and at the same time never lived it at all)

A few minutes later, a man with dark hair and stubble on his chin comes t Sherlock with the picture.

"This yours?" his voice was deep, wit a hint of an Australian accent.

Sherlock looked him up and down for a few seconds before lazily answering,

"You really aren't over your step-mother's death, are you?"

 

A broken heart, Sherlock realises as  Victor wakes him by lazily kissing his neck, no matter how many times its sewed and glued back together, will never fully feel whole.

"All right, Sherlock?"

"yeah" 

But, its keeps a heart beating and mended to know that someone's there to repair it in case of a piece breaks off.


End file.
